“Designing a dream city is easy; rebuilding a living one takes imagination.” — Jane Jacobs At the peak of the Pokémon Go craze a magical thing happened: people started to connect with their cities. Packs of enthusiastic Pokémon hunters spread to every corner of the urban landscape and beyond in…

William Shakespeare famously quipped “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” His enduring words continue to ring true, but the bard might be surprised to discover that theatre in the digital age can involve a very different sort of “player.” …

Like many parents, I struggle to strike a screen life balance. For better or worse, the portability of our digital life has disintegrated many of the boundaries that once cleanly separated the traditional social spheres. Today, we can work in our living rooms, and play at the office. We can…

While some parents worry that their kids’ online life is a poor substitute for real world interactions, the reverse may be true for some children with autism. A growing body of evidence suggests that socializing online may help kids with autism scaffold towards better real world interactions. One 2016 study…

To many, unschooling is a radical approach that is practiced in the exotic outer rings of education. Its rejection of formal education in favor of keeping the kids at home and the freedom to completely direct their own learning raises many questions. How will they socialize? What if they spend…

In today’s frenetic media ecology, parents find it harder and harder to stay on top of their kids’ digital life. They might live under one roof, but it often feels like they inhabit completely different planets. Busy parents can barely keep up with a shifting kaleidoscope of video games, social…

Online communities let geographically separated kids connect around shared interests, and can also offer some distinct advantages over face-to-face discussions. For example, some parents of children who struggle with in person socializing have discovered that they can be more comfortable and feel empowered by engaging with their peers online. …